How To Manage Lawyers Better

00:03 Speaker 1 Welcome to the Effective Lawyer, a podcast for ambitious attorneys who want to improve their practice. My name is Jack Zinda, and I'll be your host. Today we're going to be talking about one of the biggest challenges that attorneys face as their practice starts to grow. How do you manage not just yourself, but a team of lawyers working with you and today with me? I have two of our all stars at our firm that I really could not survive without. Cassandra Pilono and Christy Fahan. Hey, guys. 00:43 Speaker 2 Hey, Jack. 00:44 Speaker 1 Well, before we jump into some of the challenges and tactics we use to help manage our team, Cassandra, why don't you tell the listeners a little bit about your background and how your journey led you to leadership within a law firm. 01:00 Speaker 3 Oh, sure. Happy to. Thank you. I had been in law school after many years in academia, loved being a student, loved interacting in an academic environment. So bachelor's degree, master's degree, some PhD work, shifted to go to law school. So that love of learning and being immersed in that learning process never left. When I started litigating right after law school, I realized that I still love that mentoring and interacting with other new lawyers. So I was the person that was constantly called on to help a new lawyer mentor someone that's new to the office. And it just grew very organically from there. I started doing docket audits and case reviews with lawyers in the office before I was even promoted to manager. And I realized as I started working in management that this was something that gave me a lot of joy. 02:00 Speaker 3 I got as much joy from helping a new lawyer get trained in processes as I did from a great result at trial. And in time, it was even more so with managing the next generation of lawyers, because it's so much more about training and mentoring and teaching them that I made the decision that I wanted to manage exclusively and joined Zinda Law Group last year. 02:24 Speaker 1 Great. And before this, you were practicing a different area of law, right? You were doing family law. 02:30 Speaker 3 That's correct. Correct. Worked in domestic litigation as both a litigator and as a manager. 02:38 Speaker 1 And at your prior life, prior to joining the firm, you had a pretty big management load. I believe Yalls firm was even larger than ours. 02:47 Speaker 3 Yes, that's true. So I had a few states that I would manage offices within those states. So the challenge was knowing how to manage lawyers and paralegals or staff, understanding the nuances of the various states, understanding how to balance the needs in that state, the needs and requirements of the attorneys, and the obviously most important, the demands of the clients. 03:15 Speaker 1 I'm sure Most of our listeners, when they heard you manage multiple states, their heads started spinning. Just the idea of that concept. Well, tell the listeners what you do at our firm. 03:30 Speaker 3 I'm really excited in my role at Zynda Law Group because I get to focus so much on mentoring and training new attorneys. So I have the joy of working on the training and development team. Zenda Law Group. So we're refining our practices when it comes to training new lawyers. That is right from law school and refining practices for existing lawyers. We tell everybody joining that we have a very robust training program and we do, but it is what helps sets us apart. In addition, I manage the associates and trial lawyers, the paralegals and medical records and investigations team. 04:12 Speaker 1 Great. Well, and Christy, why don't you tell the group a little bit about your background? 04:17 Speaker 2 Sure. So I graduated from Florida State University law school in 2011 and I was a practicing attorney in South Florida at a construction law firm in Fort Lauderdale. My practice, because construction law also bleeds into labor and employment for a lot of our clients. So my practice really grew in the labor and employment area and I was doing a lot of defense work. I thought I was doing really great work, but I didn't always love the work that I was doing. And I wanted to change after about five years to a more non traditional role. I also wanted to move to Austin and Zinda Law Group had a posting for an HR job that required a JD and I thought, well, this job was made for me. 04:57 Speaker 2 I applied and I think about three weeks later I was on the road to Austin and I've been here ever since. So I just hit my five year anniversary here at Zinda Law Group. I started off as the assistant director of HR and I've been the director of HR for the past two years. And my management experience has really been here at the firm the last five years. I did not have to manage anyone as an attorney except for my paralegal teams. And so everything I've learned here on the job here at Zindalaw Group. And it actually has probably become one of my favorite things about my role. I really love mentoring my teams and coaching people up and it's something that I've come to truly enjoy, you know. 05:42 Speaker 1 And I think a lot of people underestimate what a skill management is. And it's a tactic that you can develop a skill you can develop just like taking depositions or trying a case. And even if you have a small practice, your ability to manage a small team can really get great results. And I think that's the objective of being a great manager, is getting the best outcome, your team members. And I really look at management like coaching, and a coach's job is to put the best players on the field and to get the best outcome out of those players. And managing lawyers, I think presents some unique challenges, given the background, the amount of training, the independent nature that lawyers have sometimes. So what are some of the challenges that you all have seen in managing lawyers? Cassandra, what about you? 06:42 Speaker 3 Well, I think that one of the biggest challenges is that you have to create an environment for the attorneys where they can learn. And what is inherent in the learning process is making mistakes. Yet some mistakes for a lawyer could be that ultimate mistake. And you have to balance then the ability to allow young lawyers to make mistakes, but measured mistakes so that they don't have a malpractice or grievance issue on their hand. So it does require a lot of oversight. But oversight, that's not so overbearing. Again, that's a challenge so that you're discouraging them. 07:22 Speaker 1 What about you, Christy? 07:24 Speaker 2 I think for me and my experience here the last five years, I'd say time is the biggest challenge, not just for me, but for our lawyers. They are so busy, whether it's a brand new attorney that we're bringing on or someone who has been here for 10 years and they're just continuing their development, helping them find the time in their career development and also just trying to get on the calendar sometimes can be tough. Everyone's very busy and trying to be respectful of that. And I think the other challenge too, and I find myself going back to this a lot, is remembering what it was like to be a practicing attorney and having that empathy and understanding where they're coming from. 08:07 Speaker 2 Sometimes, whether they make a mistake or they're hard to get ahold of, just remembering what they're going through day to day helps me in my management or my coaching of the team. 08:17 Speaker 1 I completely agree. And I think some of the other challenges can be when you bring someone in laterally into the firm and trying to get them to adapt to your new practices, new procedures. And I find a lot of times when you're dealing with a really high functioning professional like a lawyer, you really have to slow down and explain the why behind something. I think most attorneys have a mindset similar to myself where I want to chart my own path. I don't really like following directions, but if I understand why I'm doing something, I'm much more likely to buy in and for example, with a new staff member, maybe someone right out of college, they don't always have as much pushback or challenging of processes or challenging to approaches. So I think you really got to slow down and explain things to them. 09:13 Speaker 1 And I think also getting them to understand there's more than just knowing the law. There's a lot of techniques and tactics and getting to buy into a team mentality. I think that also can be a challenge because a lot of lawyers don't think of themselves as members of a team. They think of themselves as an individual working one case and trying to get them to understand that, you know, a lot of our attorneys start off as new associates with, you know, usually maybe a year or two of experience before joining our firm. What is your approach to ingraining a new associate and starting to teach them our approaches and managing them? Cassandra? 09:53 Speaker 3 I think that the onboarding process is really the most crucial when it comes to getting new associates to the firm. You have to know that it's. It's going to be a journey and there's going to be times where there needs to be training and feedback, and in order to get to where you want to be, you need to use that onboarding process to create that rapport. So make sure that you build in a lot of opportunities to get to know people, to have fun, to have coffee and get to know the new attorney. You want them to like you and, you know, you want them to feel invested and welcome at their new firm. And once they have that comfort, then you can move into more of the stages of, you know, the training and development. 10:39 Speaker 3 But you can't just have someone come in cold, hardly get to know them, and then just, you know, start shouting feedback at them that it's not going to be as well received. So onboarding, to me is the most critical. 10:52 Speaker 1 Yeah, I think that's a really great point. I used to get this backwards. I used to start with teaching someone how you do your job, and then hopefully they pick up on our culture along the way. But I've realized that it's really important to get people bought into your vision of the organization. And so we usually spend an hour to two in that first couple days, really explaining what are our core values? What do they mean, why do we like what we do, all the clients we've helped and really getting them excited about being here. Or on the flip side, if they realize it was a big mistake, you can hopefully figure that out, you know, right. Then opposed to after each side spent Six months working together. What about you, Christine? 11:38 Speaker 2 The thing I love about our onboarding process is that we don't really do the trial by fire. We really introduce the associate to a new area of law, maybe, or just even working in a firm for the first time and providing them with a lot of resources, you know, they can't find the answer. We have a resource for that. And that's something I think about. When I was a new associate, no one had resources for me. I was just a expected to know how to do the job. And we spend so much time with our new associates, really training them up, coaching them. And the feedback that I probably get the most from new associates is that, wow, we have so many resources here. We're so grateful that you have Westlaw and that we have the books here and everyone's so open to questions. 12:22 Speaker 2 And I think patience is also a virtue when it comes to dealing with new associates because there are a lot of questions. But that's the thing I love about our firm in particular, is that we encourage the questions. 12:34 Speaker 1 That's a great point. One thing that I think we've started doing that I think has been really helpful is giving somebody a mentor. And this person is not someone who is their boss. It's usually someone that is either on the same level or maybe just one step ahead, that's been at the firm a while, who really loves working here. And their job is just to be around, have coffee, have lunch with the person if you know, pre Covid times in person. And so they feel like they have someone they can talk to about things that aren't really technical questions or maybe case specific questions. And that gives them someone to lean on if they run into some headwinds or some challenges. Because frankly, what we do is really hard. And that's something we try to tell everybody in the interview process. 13:24 Speaker 1 You know, we have a real dedication to being great lawyers and that's not easy. And anything that is really important in life that's challenging is going to be a challenge and preparing them for those headwinds that are going to come as they learn how to be a really good trial lawyer. What about figuring out if someone is a good culture fit? You know, first, why does it matter? You know, if you've got a, let's say you've got a great lawyer who comes in, whose resume is awesome, who can do the day in and day out of the job, why does it matter in a firm to make sure it's a good culture fit? Let's start with the why, then we can start with the how. 14:04 Speaker 3 I will tell you that this is something that I had to learn by experience, that you can really like a person and you can have a great time in an interview with a person, and it doesn't mean that they're a good cultural fit. And you have to keep in mind that a bad cultural fit can be destructive to an existing culture. And that's not what you need. If you are growing a firm, you are investing a lot of time and money into a person, into their training, into their development. And that time, that money, all of it's going to be lost because you made that hire that wasn't in line with the existing culture. Something that I do, what I've learned, I should say, along the path is to prepare before any job interview. 14:55 Speaker 3 I look over our cultural values, make sure that they're in the front of my mind, and then go in and read that resume with a very critical eye. I conduct the interview in a very relaxed style because I want to invite as many honest answers as I can from someone who's interviewing and then go back with that same critical eye over the answers that I received to see whether or not they're syncing with our culture. 15:20 Speaker 1 That's a great point. And I think the idea of culture is. Culture isn't necessarily a negative or positive. It's just what is the culture of your organization? And every organization's culture is different. And so I think you want to first start out by writing out what defines your culture. How do you work? How do you operate? What are the adjectives you think of when you think of the best parts of your firm? And we go back to core principles and core purpose, and we use that to help vet our candidates. And we actually include that in our job postings. And we want the candidate to self exclude themselves if they don't feel like they're a good cultural foot. You know, two of the core principles we refer to a lot is excellence always. 16:11 Speaker 1 Which means we do great work on every single thing we work on and we all take out the trash, which indicates that no one is too important to do something within our firm. And that attracts certain candidates and it dissuades certain candidates. And I completely agree with you, Cassandra, that if you get a bad cultural fit, it's not just that person's not going to work out. All of a sudden your culture is diminished by less and it really starts affecting the organization as a whole. Christy, what are your thoughts on that? 16:48 Speaker 2 I think it's so important because as we've grown over the last five years and we've learned this lesson a lot, if someone's not a culture fit, it doesn't mean that they're a bad person or that we don't like them. There have been a lot of people who weren't culture fits that we consider friends of the firm. But it's so important because it not only affects the culture of the firm if someone's not fitting into that, but it also affects their work. It might affect the team's work. So if someone has a particular style that doesn't quite jive with our processes or procedures and they just want to be a lone ranger and do things on their own, you know, it's not setting them up for success, it's not setting our clients up for success. 17:26 Speaker 2 And it's really important for us to pinpoint that early on so we can make sure that we're in a good spot for both them and us. It affects morale if it's not a great fit. And again, like you said, it's not really a good or bad thing. It just is what it is. And something a friend of mine recently said to me, he's in the tech industry and Tesla is opening up here in Austin. And I was like, that'd be a great opportunity for you. Why don't you look into jobs there? And he's like, I would not be a culture fit. That is, I would not do well there. And that's okay, right? That's not a good or bad thing. It just. It is what it is. And so I love that we've really focused on that in our hiring the last few years. 18:05 Speaker 1 Yeah. And one thing that I think is really useful in our interview process, we have a multi stage interview process where we interview. A short interview to get to know someone a little bit, to explain more about the firm and then a couple longer interviews. And for the attorneys I look at, part of the job of the final interview is almost to dissuade the person from taking the job. To explain, here's what life is really like. You know what your day to day is going to be. Are you sure this is the commitment you want to make? Because we don't want to waste someone's time who's not going to enjoy what we do day to day. Especially when they're switching practice areas. Because practicing personal injury law is very different than practicing patent law or commercial litigation. 18:57 Speaker 2 Zynda Law Group is a plaintiff's personal injury law firm made up of over 30 lawyers. That handle catastrophic personal injury and wrongful death cases throughout the United States. We regularly counsel and joint venture with firms across the country. Over the last several years, we have paid millions of dollars in joint venture counsel fees to the law firms we work with. If you are a law firm or attorney and have a catastrophic personal injury or wrongful death case you would like to joint venture or work with Zynda Law Group on, please reach out to us at 800-863-5312 or email us@infodfirm.com and we can set up a time to discuss your case. 19:38 Speaker 1 How do you go about evaluating if someone is a good fit or not? 19:43 Speaker 3 I would say that there's always going to be a red flag, and it's the job. It's something that you have to hone in on a skill as a manager to identify red flags. My biggest pet peeve for anyone in a job interview is when they refer to paralegals or staff as my assistant. As soon as I hear those words, my assistant, I'm thinking red flag. This is not someone who necessarily sees the value of a team, who sees how the different players are performing their functions on a case. This is maybe someone who sees others in a secondary role. That is a red flag for me. I think that teamwork is paramount. We do our best job for our clients when we operate as a team. 20:36 Speaker 3 It's just those nuances that you have to train yourself to listen to while you're in those interviews that can help to avoid the bad hire. 20:47 Speaker 2 And I would say to that too, that evaluation continues even once someone is brought on. For your first 90 days here, we have a really great feedback loop between supervisors and managers. And when we're evaluating new employees and their performance here and the culture fit, we're constantly looking back to our core values and how are they meeting our core values and communicating when issues come up, which has allowed us to spot some difficulties early on, or sometimes that doesn't show up until a year later. Sometimes you just might not know. It's tough to get into a new firm and really get to know someone and how they work. But it's something as a manager you have to keep an eye on. Keep those feedback loops open and work with your team. 21:28 Speaker 1 Pay attention to your instincts and keep in mind when you're dealing with someone and you're the leader of an organization, you're getting the best example of them when they interact with you. So if you see signs of them being disrespectful to other team members or talking down to people, they're probably 10 times worse when you're not around. And that can be really detrimental. Especially lawyers have natural authority. And one of our rules is we treat everybody in the firm with dignity and respect, no matter what role they're in. Everyone has a super critical role to helping our clients. And just because you're in one position doesn't mean you're less important to the organization than someone else. What about how long it takes to figure out if someone was a good hire or not? 22:12 Speaker 1 What sort of timeframe do you guys think is a good timeframe to figure that out? 22:17 Speaker 3 I definitely think that you can figure that out within the first 90 days. And in some cases, if it's a bad hire, I think, you know, much sooner than that. Maybe within the first nine days. 22:32 Speaker 2 I agree with that timeline. And I think if someone doesn't work out even past that 90 days, it doesn't necessarily mean it was a bad hire. Maybe they're just no longer a fit. But we, and I think we've done a pretty good job as managers figuring out sooner rather than later. And we really place an emphasis on that evaluation in the first 90 days so we can protect the culture, protect the team. 22:54 Speaker 1 When I say focus on what people do, not what people say. And superstars perform at really high levels. They're not always the most outgoing or the ones that are going to be patting themselves on the back. And people that are struggling or were not a good fit may be the ones that are best at saying what they're doing and trying to convince you that they're a good fit. So keep that in mind. Focus on facts and data, not opinion and feelings. When you're evaluating how someone's done. And we have a process where we list out what are the things that we expect this person to be good at in their first 90 days. And then we're reviewing work, product and reviewing examples of that to see if that measures up to what they talked about in the interview. And we. 23:45 Speaker 1 I'm a big believer in using objective criteria. So we give a score, an actual number score to each item. And whenever we have a new person, for example, and let's say they're going to take their first deposition, we would have a more senior attorney review that deposition and give feedback on how they performed to see if it lives up to our expectations of where we expect them to be at. And I think that process can also be great to improve people. Take people from great to amazing and from good to great, and that Feedback loop is really critical to do that. What about how do you handle actually giving the feedback to someone? What's the best way to give people both positive and negative feedback? Let's assume they're someone that is a great fit and you're trying to help them. 24:33 Speaker 1 Them grow as their manager. 24:35 Speaker 3 I'd say that if a. If a circumstance presents itself where there needs to be feedback, you want as a manager to make sure that you're giving it in a way that's appropriate. So, for example, let's say that you saw that one of your attorneys had a discovery deadline. They hadn't worked that discovery the way they're supposed to. Discovery is due today. They're scrambling. The whole team is scrambling. Everyone's working hard, everyone's stressed out to get discovery out Today is right now the best time to talk to them about, you know, what could they have done better? No, maybe not. Maybe what you need to do is wait till the discovery gets out and find a nice moment. But not a week later. 25:18 Speaker 3 Maybe it's just that next morning in a quiet space with everyone calmer, to invite the lawyer to give feedback what they've observed about yesterday. So you want to. The purpose of the feedback is to help the lawyer to grow. So ask them to critique themselves. Tell them that you noticed they were scrambling, you noticed it was an uncomfortable time for everyone in the office. They were in fire mode. What would you have done differently if you could do it over again? Coach the attorney on how they can identify those issues for themselves and then get their resolve on what they're going to be doing to better. 25:55 Speaker 2 I would agree completely with that. And I would also add it's really important and especially in a situation like that, Cassandra, where maybe emotions are running high, managers stressed out because we might miss a deadline. We do meet with that person. It's also important, I think, to keep it. Try to keep it as objective as possible and keep anything personal out of it. Try to keep the emotion out of it a little bit, which can be hard to do as a manager because you know, your team success is your success and you might be frustrated with some of the errors your team is making. But it's really important to approach that conversation, like you said, calmly, I think objectively, and I try to approach those conversations. You know, it's like a teachable moment or a coachable moment to try to coach someone up. 26:38 Speaker 3 Yeah. 26:38 Speaker 1 And I think don't be afraid to apologize if you get in a moment. That's, you know, our job as Trawlers is stressful, and if someone makes a mistake at a hearing or getting ready for trial, emotions are running high. There's a lot at stake, and you might say something that is not as objective as you would like just because of the stress that everybody's under, don't be afraid to say, listen, you know, let's talk about this later and apologize. If you step out a little bit and get a little more fired up than you meant to, because you want to keep in mind you have this person on the team that you want there. And your job as their manager is to help coach them to be the best version of themselves. And people don't perform well under fear. 27:22 Speaker 1 And they're also not going to be honest with you about what went wrong if they're nervous that they're going to get attacked for giving you their honest opinion about what happened in that situation. So really keep that in mind. The other thing is, I think it's important to be quick to praise and quick to give feedback when it's not major issues. That way people get used to that feedback loop, both good and bad. I think it can be unhelpful to store up a bunch of negative feedback to give all at once. And also it can be just as unhelpful to give the positive feedback, because your job is also to get the positive work out of people. 28:00 Speaker 1 And I look at it is with your top performers that you want to have two to three positive conversations at least for every piece of feedback you're giving, so they can see where they're doing great, so they accelerate that and they don't think it's all negative. It's very easy to get caught up in the mindset of only spotting problems instead of also praising victories for people. One thing we do that helps with that, every meeting we have involving any sort of team meeting or performance meeting, we start with victories. And each person says, okay, what is the professional victory that we've had since the last time we've met? And that helps keep the energy positive and to really focus on that. 28:43 Speaker 1 The other thing that I think can be really helpful in performance feedback is putting it down in writing, especially when it comes to specific tactics you want the person to get better at. For example, if you have someone who's learning how to take their first expert deposition and maybe they did an okay job, but you think they could do a great job, get specific for what you want to see them improve more on the next go around. And I think that can be really helpful to look at that. What do you think are some of the lessons that you've learned over the years on how to manage that you would want a new attorney to the practice of law or maybe managing a team for the first time to take away from this. 29:29 Speaker 3 Cassandra, so many lessons over the years. I'd say that there's two that stand out to me. Number one is to stop talking as much, listen more, talk less. I'll say that for trial lawyers, talking is a great asset. We talk and we out talk our opponent in the courtroom and it's fantastic. But managers will never win over anyone in your team if you're out talking them. You have to listen more and really genuinely listen. And you can show that you've listened by giving feedback and showing those active listening techniques. And then secondly, we've touched on this already. Admitting mistakes because you're going to make mistakes. You're in a process of learning just like those people in your team. If you don't admit the mistakes that you make, then your team's going to potentially lose respect. You could potentially lose credibility. 30:32 Speaker 3 And again, that could mean disaster for the team and the building. So listen more than you speak and admit your mistakes have been my biggest takeaways in my process. 30:44 Speaker 2 For me, and this is a lesson I recently learned, I think, from you, Jack, not too long ago, as I've grown as a manager, don't just harp on what went wrong. Also focus on how can we solve the problem and how can we avoid this in the future, how can we improve this in the future? This is very easy to get into that back and forth of like, here's what you should have done better and here's what went wrong. And that's not productive all the time. Right? We want to learn from this. We want the feedback to come across, but we also want to keep it constructive. 31:14 Speaker 2 And then I think the other thing that I been trying to improve on myself is don't be afraid to give feedback when it's warranted or when it's needed because it doesn't help you to not correct someone or give them the feedback because really you're hurting them in the long run. If they're continuing to make the same mistake, they're not going to grow from that. And you don't grow as a manager. That's something I've been working really hard on because I do have a hard time giving sometimes the more negative feedback, or we can call it the constructive feedback, but it's something I'm working on. And so those are the biggest lessons I've learned. 31:47 Speaker 1 I completely agree. And I think, you know, I heard someone mention one time that looking backwards is micromanaging, but looking forward is managing. And so focusing on future actions, how they can get better, I think is really important. Building trust with your team is another area that you've got to really take time to execute on. And having honest conversations, which I find is really challenging, especially if you really like someone and maybe they're struggling in an area and you're worried about the confrontation of talking through these issues with the person. 32:27 Speaker 1 But if you come at it from a coach perspective and from the idea of I'm trying to help the person and then also looking at, ultimately I'm doing this to help my clients, it's a way to compartmentalize it so you're able to have those conversations to help get the best out of someone. Well, guys, this has been a really fun conversation. Great talk. Hopefully you all found some usefulness in some of the tips and tactics. And if you have any questions, you know, your first go around on management or managing a lawyer, feel free to reach out to us. You know, even if you're a team of two. I found frankly, the first associate that I hired was probably the most challenging to manage. And it's a real skill that you have to really work on to focus, to get better at. 33:15 Speaker 1 So don't be afraid to reach out if you have any questions. Thanks, guys. 33:18 Speaker 2 Thanks, Jeff. 33:19 Speaker 3 Thank you. 33:24 Speaker 1 Thank you for taking the time to listen to this episode of the Effective Lawyer. If you enjoyed this podcast, please take a moment to rate it 5 stars and leave us a review. To get notified about new episodes that are upcoming or have been released, go to zdfirm.com podcast Sign up for our mailing list.